Tag Archives: chocolate

Matthew: I was charged with bringing a delicious dessert to an after-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving dinner. I chose to bring a tart with a thin layer of Nutella under a ganache. I used Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate in the ganache and it turned out really rich and decadent. The Nutella layer was nice too, giving the tart a hint of hazelnuts. Here’s the recipe:

Tart Shell (I sort of made 1.5x the recipe since I had an 11″ pan and this recipe is for a 9″ pan)

1 1/2 c. flour

1/2 c. confectioners’ sugar

1/4 t. salt

9 T. cold butter, cut into small pieces

1 large egg yolk

Whisk together dry ingredients, then cut cold butter into the mixture. This can be done in a food processor or by hand. Then, mix in the egg yolk until it comes together. (Mine didn’t, so I added a fair amount of water.) Press into a tart pan. Cover tart with foil and either beans or some other weight and bake at 375 degrees F for 25 minutes. Take off foil and weights and bake for ~8 minutes or until brown.

When tart is cool, spread a thin layer of Nutella and then pour on ganache (see below). Chill in fridge to set.

Matthew: Well, I finally got around to using the hot fudge sauce in a delicious ice cream pie. The whole thing was pretty quick to put together and was really tasty. And, I made a video to go along! Here’s the recipe and video:

Matthew: Now that the heat wave is over, I can once again turn on my oven and stove without worrying about spontaneously combusting my apartment. My first order of business was to make hot fudge sauce that I need for an ice cream pie that I’ll be making soon. I’ve never made hot fudge sauce before, but I was pleasantly surprised with how easy and seemingly foolproof it was to make. I found this recipe from Smitten Kitchen that makes about 2 1/2 cups. I flavored my hot fudge sauce with a little Frangelico. After making it, I decided that I had some extra hot fudge, so I made an emergency run for vanilla ice cream. Now that I know how good and easy homemade hot fudge is, I’ll probably make it more often.

Matthew: My goal for Valentine’s Day was to make a very indulgent chocolaty dessert. Last year around this time I made molten chocolate cakes, but this time I went for a more traditional cake. I had some leftover Guinness to use up, so I used this King Arthur’s Flour chocolate stout cake recipe that had a lot of good reviews. I wanted to be indulgent, but when I looked at the ingredient list (4 sticks of butter! 1 pound of chocolate! 4 cups sugar! 2 cups cream!) I decided that half the recipe would be more than enough for me. I just made one 9-inch cake and topped it with a nice thick layer of the ganache. I used Hershey’s special dark cocoa and Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate, so the cake has a very intense dark chocolate flavor. Next time, I might mix in a bit of semisweet chocolate just to add a little more sweetness to the ganache. It is really delicious though and it goes perfectly with a glass of red wine.

Matthew: I decided to make a chocolately treat while watching the Olympics the other night. This recipe for molten chocolate cakes from the New York Times was easy enough that I could make it during the commercial breaks and not miss any of the action. I just used enough batter to fill two 3″ ramekins and refrigerated the rest for later. I figured these would be best right out of the oven for fresh eating! And, they were! A perfect pair for an exciting night of competition.